About Us

Committed to improving society through transparency and technology

Kelly Garvy

Founder of Upstate

Kelly grew up in South Florida where she fell in love with the water and all things wild. She went on to study environmental sciences at the University of Notre Dame and a masters in environmental economics and policy from Duke University. She learned at Duke the importance of policy in perpetuating or ending societal ills, and set out on a mission to bring transparency to state government, starting in North Carolina. She designs, develops and drives the vision of the site with a little help from her friends.

Email her at kelly@keepupstate.com

Cody Hill

Head of Growth

Cody grew up just outside of Washington DC in northern Virginia. After studying Public Policy and Spanish at The College of William & Mary he taught English in rural Spain. He next did sales at LivingSocial and marketing at Collage Group before getting his MBA at UNC Chapel Hill. From there he worked in retail ops at Amazon and most recently was a Product Operations leader at Facebook in San Francisco. He recently left Facebook to join Upstate as Head of Growth as he is passionate about using technology to reform and update government.

Email him at cody@keepupstate.com

Working With Code The Dream

Ramiro Rodriguez

Co-founder of Code The Dream, CTO

Ramiro knows about the American Dream and he knows about coding. Originally from Mexico, Ramiro moved to the United States as a child and excelled in school. He majored in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Cornell and later returned for a Masters in Computer Science. Together with an amazing team of top-notch volunteer instructors and mentors, he leads Code the Dream's teaching and project-based learning.

Crystal Williams-Brown

Developer and mentor at Code The Dream

Crystal Williams-Brown got a BFA in Animation from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, home of the Fighting Pickles.  (Yes, that’s their actual mascot!)  Like many recent grads, Crystal found it hard to get a job in her field.  She worked in retail for some time before trying a programming course with Code the Dream.  At Code the Dream, Crystal found a supportive community and discovered a passion for Ruby on Rails.  Crystal quickly advanced through the program, starting as an intern before landing a role as a full-time developer with Code the Dream working on social justice applications.